Women who have undergone breast augmentation surgery face a challenge in finding a well-fitting sports bra to adequately support their enhanced breasts. Post-augmentation, a woman's breasts are often disproportionately large in comparison with the circumference of her rib cage. While women with naturally large breasts are typically also naturally larger in the rib cage area and/or upper body, women with augmented breasts are often proportionally smaller in the rib cage area and/or upper body, and thus have a disproportionate upper body structure after surgery. Many conventional sports bra cup and band dimensions tend to increase proportionally (for example, sports bras that are sized small, medium, large, etc. rather than specifically sized for cup and band ratios), and therefore provide a poor fit for the augmented figure.
Further, women with augmented breasts need more breast tissue and ligament support than natural breasts, in order to reduce ligament stretching and sagging over time. As women age, both their breast tissue and the suspensory Cooper's ligaments lose elasticity and thin. However, breast implants create a dense, non-changing load on the progressively thinner and weaker Cooper's ligaments. Without proper support, especially during exercise that involves dramatic up and down or side to side motion, augmented breasts may be even more susceptible to sagging than natural breasts. Surgical intervention, implant replacement and/or breast lift, is often required to fix implants that have sagged drastically due to improper support.
A woman with augmented breasts may also experience increased nipple protrusion due to numbness or loss of sensation in nipple tissue—a common side effect of augmentation, occurring in greater than 50% of surgeries. As a result, the nipples are often erect at embarrassing times. Workouts are no exception.